GallonsOfFun
Aquarium Advice Freak
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2015
- Messages
- 309
Have a 55 gallon brackish (1.005 sg) tank and I'm rehoming the last inhabitant today and converting it to freshwater (Amazon biotope, if you're interested). I'm not adding fish until the new year because I'll be gone for 2 weeks (17th-31st) over Christmas, which is where this gets tricky.
I'd prefer to keep the beneficial bacteria in my filter alive but when you lower sg more than .002/week you risk killing it off. The best I can do is lower .005 over 11 days, which is probably worth trying. I can also seed it with media from the LFS.
But this is where I need help. If I was able to keep it cycled by means of this and/or seeded media, how much ammonia would I need in the tank to make sure there's still some left for the bacteria to feed off by the time I get back. If I dose 4ppm and it deals with it in a day, that's no use to me because the bacteria would have no food source after that.
Another option is if I just started from scratch and let the bacteria die off, so that it would take longer to deal with the ammonia. How much would you dose with in this instance?
Lastly, would it be a better idea to leave some shrimp in there (more constant source of ammonia)? I know shrimp can get iffy and you're supposed to take it out at some point but obviously it would be in there for 2 weeks.
I'd prefer to keep the beneficial bacteria in my filter alive but when you lower sg more than .002/week you risk killing it off. The best I can do is lower .005 over 11 days, which is probably worth trying. I can also seed it with media from the LFS.
But this is where I need help. If I was able to keep it cycled by means of this and/or seeded media, how much ammonia would I need in the tank to make sure there's still some left for the bacteria to feed off by the time I get back. If I dose 4ppm and it deals with it in a day, that's no use to me because the bacteria would have no food source after that.
Another option is if I just started from scratch and let the bacteria die off, so that it would take longer to deal with the ammonia. How much would you dose with in this instance?
Lastly, would it be a better idea to leave some shrimp in there (more constant source of ammonia)? I know shrimp can get iffy and you're supposed to take it out at some point but obviously it would be in there for 2 weeks.